Both are suffering and that’s good for the yellow metal that also has an inverse relationship to real yields.

One positioning squeeze often begets another.

In an almost unprecedented move, net speculative positioning in gold and silver futures has collapsed in recent weeks.

As Peter Boockvar notes, “for those who care about gold such as myself, in the just released CFTC data for the week ended Tuesday, speculators went net short for the first time since December 2001 when gold was priced at $275 an ounce. It’s tough to find a more contrarian indicator.”

All this couldn’t come together at a more awkward time for gold bears: last week’s CFTC report showed that net gold shorts are at a record.